How to Learn and Master SEO – Tutorials for beginners

Learn and Master SEO

As more and more new, quality websites are indexed by search engines, competition for the top of the results page is increasingly fierce. And, since Google routinely updates its search algorithm, staying updated on the changes is important. Things you were told 2 years ago may not matter at all today.

SEO-master

It can be a tough and technical job, which is why some companies have their own in-house SEO professional. Fortunately, that really isn’t necessary if you have a little knowledge of SEO, have a quality website, and comply with Google’s guidelines.

In this post, I’ll give you resources you can use to learn about SEO and stay on top of SEO, including some free tools that’ll be useful for fixing any issues. Enjoy…

For Beginners

Just getting into SEO? Want to learn a little bit every day? These resources are a good place to start:

58 Resources to Help You Learn and Master SEO

As more and more new, quality websites are indexed by search engines, competition for the top of the results page is increasingly fierce. And, since Google routinely updates its search algorithm, staying updated on the changes is important. Things you were told 2 years ago may not matter at all today.

It can be a tough and technical job, which is why some companies have their own in-house SEO professional. Fortunately, that really isn’t necessary if you have a little knowledge of SEO, have a quality website, and comply with Google’s guidelines.

In this post, I’ll give you resources you can use to learn about SEO and stay on top of SEO, including some free tools that’ll be useful for fixing any issues. Enjoy…

For Beginners

Just getting into SEO? Want to learn a little bit every day? These resources are a good place to start:

1. How Google Crawls – Discusses the basics of how Google crawls the web, indexes, and serves results.

2. How Google Works – If you want to get into SEO, you’ll need to understand the basics of how Google (and other) search engines work. This video provides a background on Google search.

3. Getting the Basics – If you want to get traffic from Google and rank well, you’ll need to have a site that Google views as high quality. It has certain signals that it uses to gauge a site’s quality. This article covers the basics of what attributes you’ll need.

4. PageRank – To understand the Google search engine and why some sites rank higher than others, you’ll need to have an understanding of PageRank. This Wikipedia article gives a good background. (It’s even referenced by Google employees.)

5. Quick Sprout’s Guide to SEO – A 9 chapter, infographic-style guide to SEO. A good resource if you don’t want to read a book but want something more thorough than a simple explanation.

6. Moz’s Guide to SEO – Don’t want to learn about SEO through long infographics? Then check out this 10 chapter guide written by the folks over at Moz.

11. Open Site Explorer – Also known as the search engine for links, Open Site Explorer is a Moz creation. This tool allows you to see who links to your site, find links that point to old and broken pages, and research competitors to see who links to them. To check out the toolbar and view the product demo, check out this page. In order to understand this tool, you’ll need to be familiar with the terms Page Authority and Domain Authority. Note: this is a limited free tool. You can pay for enhanced access.

26. Marketing Grader – HubSpot’s popular free tool gives you an overview of your marketing efforts, including an SEO analysis.

Tips and Tricks

By “tricks,” I don’t mean “If you just do x to your site, you’ll soar to the top!” That won’t work. These articles don’t promise anything of that nature. They give quality information for you to know:

27. Setting up an SEO Friendly WordPress Site – WordPress is a publishing platform that is used by millions of websites. Read this article if you have a WordPress site or want to get set up with one and are not too familiar with SEO.

28. SEO for Blogs – Don’t have a WordPress site but still want SEO for blogs? Have a WordPress site and want to learn about SEO for any kind of blog? If yes, check out this article.

30. Making Content Memorable – If you run a blog, it’s important to not put your time and energy into getting tweets, likes, +1′s, etc. Why? Because it’s still not totally clear how these play into Google’s ranking. You should be spending your time focusing on producing great content. This SEO Copywriting (SuccessWorks) article gives a good overview of how to turn an article from “meh” to memorable.

32. Quick Wins in SEO – Want some quick wins (that you may not be familiar with already) in SEO? Are you familiar with title tags and h2 tags? If not, check out this article. It’ll help bring some quick wins to your website.

33. SEO for Software Companies – Run a software company and want to know how to get traffic to your website via content creation? Check out this article for all the details.

Staying Updated

As mentioned, staying updated on Google algorithm changes is important. Of course, there are a few principles that are timeless and good policy. For example, maintaining a quality site with accurate information is top priority, because content is king. These things won’t change.

But being aware of any changes or updates to the Google guidelines and complying with what they’re looking for is required, too. These resources will help you do that. They also contain solid advice that you can use for your SEO efforts. Add these blogs to your RSS reader to stay on top of all things SEO:

41. Google Webmaster YouTube Channel – Frequently updated with a Q&A from Matt Cutts. If anything about SEO is a “must watch,” it’s this. No speculation, no conjecture, just accurate information from a key employee on Google’s search team.

42. Moz Blog – A variety of topics in the SEO arena are covered. Features a variety of guest bloggers.

So, will using all of these tools, reading blogs and articles, and talking with SEO experts get you to the top of a results page? Nope. The key thing to remember with SEO is that it all comes down to producing quality content. After that, promote it and make sure it spreads. These things will get you pretty far.

Because SEO, in the end, is not much different from a business. Giving people what they want and the accurate information they need is job #1. If you do SEO exactly right but neglect the quality aspect, your efforts won’t yield much in the way of results. You have to be familiar with SEO and have a quality site.